At the moment it's just wishful thinking QS , but (and its a moderately large one) if we beat the likes of Bromleyx2 and Wrexham ,. so far decent teams , and marry that with wins over Sutton and an inform Maidenhead it gives me the confidence that we can go and beat anyone from this division.
But yes for the time being i am holding a couple of horses, one strategically in each arm,.
COYP!
Wrexham wouldn’t matter if we finish above Bromley and either Chesterfield or Halifax. As mentioned, that is unless Eastleigh go on a rampage and win all five of their games.
Obviously we want to get as many points as possible and finish fifth if we can, but it would take a wildly implausible set of results for us to finish on 70 points but outside of the top seven.
I would agree that seven points should be enough. I also think that 68 points might be enough to scrape a playoff place but we don’t want that stress.
Cheaterfield, Bromley and Halifax can all finish on 71 points if all three win their remaining games. The odds of that must be really long and likewise it would mean we would have messed up in both games against Bromley.
I said on here a while back we really needed to win a block of five games and if we can win the next two we would be close to having the first objective of finishing in the playoffs done. However two more wins and a draw in any order should suffice.
The two games against Bromley are massive and will have a massive impact on where we finish but also where Bromley finish. That is a positive though as it means it’s still entirely in our hands.
We are in the playoffs we have our place, the challenge for the players is to relish the challenge and go on and cement it.
I would love it if we crept into 3rd but that looks very unlikely. 5th should be the aim to get a home tie in the first round (in front of at least 4,400) and an away tie to reach the final. If we can carry on this decent run nobody will want to play us.
So I wanted to get an idea who everyone had to play and didn't think anyone had posted the remaining games yet. Also what sort of points haul we may all get if results were pretty much based on current league position / results over the season.
So not applying any science to this like xG and xPts etc but simply predicting a draw in all games between teams in the play-offs and wins by one goal against anyone else lower down. (Note that none of the six play anyone from the top 4). Notts and Bromley have the toughest run-ins whereas Eastleigh's is theoretically the easiest as they play none of the other play-off contenders. Dagenham could have a huge say in the final positions as they play 3 of our r*vals and are on a great run themselves.
We just about scrape into seventh place on that basis (goal difference clinches it), but if we turn one of our draws against Bromley into a win we are 6th or beat Wrexham we are 5th. Can't see Eastleigh winning all 5 as the teams they play are mostly decent mid-table.
Table
Team P Pts GD
Notts 38 63 18
Chesterfield 39 62 15
Halifax 39 62 12
Bromley 39 62 8
Wrexham 38 61 19
Eastleigh 37 56 5
TO PLAY
Notts
Bromley H D
Wrexham A D
Weymouth H W
Bromley A D
Chesterfield
Wealdstone H W
Dagenham H W
Halifax A D
Halifax
Dagenham A W
Maidenhead A W
Chesterfield A D
Bromley
Notts A D
Aldershot A W
Notts H D
Wrexham
Boreham Wood A W
Notts H D
Kings Lynn H W
Dagenham A W
Eastleigh
Barnet H W
Aldershot A W
Boreham Wood H W
Altrincham A W
Solihull A W
FINAL TABLE
Team P Pts GD
Wrexham 42 71 22
Eastleigh 42 71 10
Notts 42 69 19
Chesterfield 42 69 17
Halifax 42 69 14
Bromley 42 67 9
Interesting thing to consider with the games against teams with nothing to play for is the return of fans. An away game against someone mid-table or below is likely to be a lot trickier from Monday onwards than it otherwise would’ve been as you would imagine that playing in front of a home crowd for the first time in 14 months or whatever it is may well give teams a bit of motivation that they probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.